English 5970 -- Spring 2026
Climate Fiction
When his ship first came to Australia
Cook wrote, the natives
continued fishing, without looking up.
Unable, it seems, to hear the too large to be comprehended.
-- Jane Hirshfield
2025 was not simply the hottest year in recorded history but, along with 2023 and 2024, one of the hottest years of the last 125,000 years. Each of the last three years have also set new records for human greenhouse gas emissions. Far earlier than predicted these last three years have reached the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement target of 1.5 C, beyond which extremely dangerous positive feedback loops and tipping points may push global warming beyond human control.
Climate change is the defining crisis of our time and its accelerating impacts are reshaping every dimension of human life. The leadership of our country is now devastating climate action that was already insufficient.
This course explores the growing body of "Cli-Fi" (climate fiction and poetry), asking how literature can illuminate the human dimensions of climate change: migration and displacement, environmental justice and inequality, speculative technologies, and intergenerational hope.
Our reading will include examination of the impacts of increasing global heating and the response of the creative imagination to help us understand its social and human meaning. We will read cli-fi novels, short stories, flash fiction, poetry, and place-based creative nonfiction. We will examine climate fiction theory and scholarship and consider strategies for teaching it. Students will write cli-fi and publish on a public website.
Course Success
The class is will be in seminar format, discussion-based, and attendance and preparation are essential not only to your own learning but also to the learning of your classmates. Your class participation grade is based on how well you have done the reading and prepared for class; I will invite everyone to be heard and participating
As a graduate-level seminar there will be extensive reading. Students are expected to purchase paper copies of the books, always carefully do the reading, bring books to class, and come prepared to contribute.
Spring 2026 is the first time this seminar has been offered and the syllabus is provisionary.
Missing any classes will affect your learning. Missing 3 seminars or more will lower your grade and missing 4 may lead to failing. Study my philosophy regarding discussion, preparation, participation, attendance, grading, and learning!
WMU provides a free NYT subscription and The Guardian, available for free online provides some of the best climate coverage
Your final course grade will be an average of grades for the major assignments, listed and weighted below.
WMU Climate Change Syllabus Statement:
Climate change is a serious social problem, and examination of the climate disruptions due to global warming may evoke a strong emotional response. Some who come to understand the dire consequences of the climate crisis may experience what has been called 'climate grief' or 'climate anxiety.' To seek counseling, become informed about ways to deal with climate anxiety, or to get involved with others who are as concerned about the climate crisis, view the resources listed on the WMU Climate Change Working Group website.
At WMU, one out of every ten students was born in another country. More than 94 countries are represented on the WMU campus. Wherever you or your family are from, WMU affirms that you are welcome here. I am committed to doing everything I can to ensure that every student, regardless of immigration status, is safe in this classroom. I will not create or maintain records that could be used by federal agencies to implicate members of our community as undocumented. I will not allow ICE or other groups into the classroom without an official signed judicial warrant and consult with campus safety. WMU provides links to Know Your Rights and legal support. The Michigan Immigrant Rights Coalition also offers a preparation guide in many languages to individuals and families who may face threats of arrest, detention, and deportation.
My office is 723 Sprau Tower. Office hours are before class and by appointment. You can always reach me via email.
Lynas, Mark. Our Final Warning (2020)
Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower (1993)
Bacigalupi, Paolo. Water Knife (2015)
Googins, Nick Fuller. The Great Transition (2023)
Freeman, John. Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World (2020)
Additional reading and viewing linked to this syllabus, provided by the professor, or student selected. (Though the links above go to Amazon, these book have also been ordered for the WMU Student bookstore, and can be found at libraries, independent bookstores, and online from other sites such as Better World Books.)
Major Assignments
|
Class Participation (40%) Cli-Fi Writer's Journal Due: Jan 28. (20%) Climate Writing Due: on or before Feb 25 and Mar 25. (20%) Final Paper (20%) Participation in WMU or community climate action event or activity. (Extra Credit) |
Electronic Syllabus
Wed Jan 14: Introductions
Join the 5970 Spring 26 GroupMe and sign up for the NY Times.
Mon Jan 19: MLK Day
Attend MLK Day Events.
Wed Jan 21: Writing About Our Climate Preaent and Future
Wed Jan 28: Writing About Our Climate Future1. Read carefully through the entire on-line syllabus. Bring any questions about the syllabus and assignments to class.
2. Read: Our Final Warning: Foreword, Chapters 1-3.
3. Keep Cli-Fi Writer's Journal, and prepare to share from it.
1. Read: Our
, Chapters 4-6 2. Read: from Tropic of Chaos (2011) by Christian Parenti, p 7-11.
3. Read: from The Language of Climate Politics, "Preface: We."
4. Keep Cli-Fi Writer's Journal, prepare to share from it.
5. Develop one of your writing ideas, and make that the last entry in your Cli-Fi Writer's Journal.
6. Due: Cli-Fi Writer's Journal.
Wed Feb 4: Parable of the Sower
1. Read: Parable of the Sower.
2. Look at What Climate Change Will Do to America?
Wed Feb 11: Cli-Fi Short Stories and Flash Fiction
1. Read: "A Fable For Tomorrow from Silent Spring(1962), from Tales of Two Planets: "Dusk," from Everything Change (2016): Into the Storm, "Grandchild Paradox," "Acqua Alta," "Standing Still," "On Darwin Tides," "Masks," "LOSD and Font,""Wonder of the Word," Hermie," from Tales of Two Planets: "Survival,"
2. Examine: AiCliFi.com.
3. Examine: Climate Writing.
Wed Feb 18: Cli-Fi Short Stories and Flash Fiction
1. Read: Ministry for the Future Chapter 1.
https://books.rockslide.ca/read/780/epub#epubcfi(/6/14!/4/2/2[chapter001]/2/2/1:0)
Wed Feb 25: Water Knife
1. Read: Water Knife
Wed Mar 4: The Great Transition
1. Read: The Great Transition
Mar 9-13: Spring Break
Wed Mar 18: Climate Poetry and the Necro-Pastoral
1. Read: from Tales of Two Planets: "Tracking the Rain," "Denmark," "A Blue Mormon," "Coral Watch."
2.
3.
Wed Mar 25: Place-Based Creative Climate Non-Ficion
1. Read: from Tales of Two Planets: "N64 35.378, W16 44 691," "Drowning in Reverse," "Riachuelo," "The Astronomical Cost of Clear Air in Bangkok," "A Downward Slope," "The Floods," Born Stranger," "In This Phase," "The Storytellers of the Earth," "The House of Osiris" "The Unfortunate Place," "The Funniest Shit You Ever Heard," "El Lago," "The Song of the Fireflies," "The Rains," "The Well, "Spring in Wadi Delab," "The Psychopaths."
Wed Apr 1: Choose your own Cli-Fi Novel
1. Read: One of these climate novels: All the Water in the World, Green Rising, Blackfish City, Exit West, Fragment, Gun Island, Ministry for the Future, Gold Fame Citrus, Grapes of Wrath, Parable of the Talents, Odds Against Tomorrow, What We Can Know, The Road, The Rapture, Solar, Carbon Diaries 2015, Code Blue, Dry, Fireseed one, If Not Us, Ship Breaker, Two Degrees, Orleans, Hungry Tide.
2. Prepare a report to the class about your novel, including a teaching idea.
Wed Apr 8: Open Topic
1. Read: To be determined.
Wed Apr 15: Cli-Fi Literary Theory
1. Read: from Everything Change (2016): "Foreword" by Kim Stanley Robinson, "Praying for Rain: Interview with Paulo Bacigalupi"
2. Read: From The Great Derangement by Amitov Ghosh (2016) 3-33, 44-54, 66-73, 87-90, 119-132.
3. Read:.
Wed Apr 22: Teaching Cli-Fi & Preparing Final Project
1. Read: from Teaching Climate Change in the Humanities: "Climate Change Our Job"
2. Read: from Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents, Chapters 1-4.
3. Read: from Empowering Youth to Confront the Climate Crisis, Introduction and Chapters 5-10.
4. Read: from Teaching at Twilight "Chapter 3 The Duty to Inform".
4. Read: from How to Blow Up a Pipeline, p "145-152".
Apr 27-30 Finals Week
Wed Apr 29 5:00-7:00: Final Exam